My Lady Fair and Cold
by Pseudoscience
Summary: Grima Wormtongue arrests Eomer for high treason to the King of Rohan. The sentence is death. There is only one thing Grima desires more than Eomer's head.  What might Lady Eowyn be willing to do to save her brother's life?
1. Prologue

**Part One**

_Come to me in the darkness and linger with me there_

_Offer me your freedom and give to me your cares_

_To protect you, I must destroy you_

_To gain you, I must lose you_

_To touch you, I must take you_

_Come to me in the darkness and linger with me there_

**Prologue:**

**The Order of Execution**

The order for the execution of The Third Marshall of Rohan was signed in the king's own hand. The Lord of the Mark's signature was the scratchy scribble of an illiterate man who has been taught to sign his name, but does not comprehend the full meaning of the letters he forms. He inserts or removes extra loops until just the general impression of the name remains. The signature started on the line then drooped through the middle of it, cramping for space against the edge of the paper as though the writer had fallen asleep halfway through signing. To other illiterate men, the signature looked like the final flourish of an impressive legal document. To the few in court that could read, it was a child's scribbling. No one doubted that the signature was authentic.

This order was tacked outside of the high hall where all who passed by the Meduseld could view it. The impending execution of the Third Marshall provoked much muttering and speculation in the sometimes sleepy and always insular villages of Rohan. Most of the gossipers expected that clemency would be granted since the king was the uncle and guardian of the Third Marshall. It was deemed unlikely that the king would wish to execute his only remaining heir; his true son had just died tragically young. True, the condemned had a sister, but the women of Rohan did not inherit lands or titles.

Most likely, the villagers whispered in their dark huts over their simple dinners, the king was merely trying to teach the Third Marshall a firm lesson about the perils of insubordination. When the moment came, he would intervene. The death sentence must be intended for show, and the people resolved to attend the show. No one wanted to miss the dramatic moment when the king of Rohan halted the execution of his nephew with a sweep of his tremulous hand. Perhaps the Third Marshall would weep and fall to his king's feet in repentance. Likely these events would be made into a stirring song. As the workers, farmers, ranchers, soldiers, wives, and daughters of Rohan reflected on this throughout their daily routines, they began to hum snatches of old heroic songs in anticipation of the historic deeds that they would shortly witness.

But few who still remained in the Meduseld doubted that the execution would be carried out to its grisly conclusion. For the king was not himself these days, and had not been for many months. When the courtiers looked at the execution order, their eyes swept above the childish signature to the rest of the document drafted in a cramped, but clear hand with a few ink smudges bordering the paper. Most of the court members could read little more than their rustic counterparts, but they recognized the tight, efficient handwriting as belonging to the king's counselor. The counselor, they knew, was the real power behind the throne. The last few months, the king's will seemed to have entirely shriveled away, through sorcery or through old age. A glance at the senile scrawl at the bottom of the legible print convinced the courtiers that the execution order came from Grima Wormtongue, not the king of Rohan.

Those who were so perceptive knew that Grima would not stay his hand at the last moment, not for the condemned of all people. The Third Marshall and the counselor had loathed each other from childhood and a dark, vengeful man like Wormtongue would not miss his opportunity to rid himself of a powerful foe and a rival voice in the king's ear. While the population of Rohan watched awaiting a pardon with open mouths, while the feeble king stared blankly on, no counter-order would be given and the headsman's ax would fall. The Third Marshall's head would roll onto the grass and his lifeblood would soak into the plains of Rohan.

A line of script scrawled immediately above the king's signature fixed the date and time of the execution for three days later at sunrise.

_A/N: Please review and let me know what you thought. The style of this prologue is not entirely representative of the rest of the fic, this was just an introduction to set the tone. I hope it was epic enough. The next chapter is longer and more detailed, and introduces us to the fair princess. Our leading man will also appear shortly._

_Though this is a WIP, I am committed to finishing it (already have 10,000 words) and I will be updating once a week regularly. I hope you will enjoy it._


	2. Alone and Beset

**Chapter One:**

**Alone and Beset**

News of Eomer's doom spread so quickly through the channels of gossip that Eowyn, sister to the condemned, may have been the last to know of it. The morning of Eomer's return and arrest, Eowyn had slipped from her chambers in the golden hall as the dawn was breaking. She dressed before the first birds began to sing in the garden behind her bedroom. She stole from the hall and crept to barn, nodding to the drowsy stable boy who, in exchange for a small monthly bribe, would not betray her.

Her grey mare, Guthwyn, whinnied when she saw Eowyn and nodded her head with excitement. "Hello," Eowyn said, rubbing the small whorl of hairs in the center of the mare's forehead. "I made it today, but I was unable to bring you any snacks."

Guthwyn sniffed Eowyn's pockets for a carrot or a lump of sugar and would not be satisfied with her mistress's poverty until Eowyn held out an empty cupped hand for the horse to tickle with her whiskers. "See. Nothing for you."

The mare did not appear to hold a grudge and danced with excitement while Eowyn saddled her. "Easy, girl," Eowyn whispered, rubbing her palm over the mare's neck to soothe her. "We must be quiet for now. Soon we will run."

Strange though it might seem for a royal lady to creep about her own halls like a low thief, for months this had been Eowyn's typical morning routine. If she did not go riding early and in secret, a certain servant of her uncle's would prevent her from even that small release.

If Wormtongue saw her pass through the halls in her riding clothes, his pale eyes traced her path toward the door, and he whispered something into her uncle's ear. After a moment, her uncle would issue an edict in his sleepy voice. All women were to remain within the Meduseld that day, for their own protection. Orcs and dangerous beasts were about, perhaps even lurking on the plains immediately surrounding the hall, and the fair daughters of Rohan must remain indoors, cleaved from the wind and the sky and the reeling of the plains from horseback.

Eowyn bit her tongue and said nothing when she was forced to stay inside like a defenseless court lady with unblemished hands. Eowyn's hands were marred by callouses from hours of training with her uncle's best men in the sword-yard. The Meduseld's master at arms had told the king that he would pity the chances of any Orc to cross her path. But it did no good to sway Theoden who was under the spell of a more persuasive voice.

To Eowyn, the gravest danger that lurked outside the hall seemed as nothing compared to the darkness that lurked within. Outside Eowyn carried a sharp sword and relied on her quick reflexes to protect her against the errant Orcs. Outside she trusted Guthwyn to outrun even the fleetest two-feeted creature.

Inside the hall Eowyn was unarmed and defenseless, alone and beset. In her own home Eowyn would find herself subjected to the counselor's overt stares and heavy breathing until she was driven back within her own chambers to hide until meal times when her presence was required. She dined with her uncle, whatever Rohirric nobility could be rounded up, and the seemingly omnipresent Grima Wormtongue. She nibbled at her food while the counselor's eyes devoured her over the laden table.

* * *

><p>After mounting Guthwyn, Eowyn rode due east so that the sun would not glare in her eyes until she began to return. By then the glowing orb would be overhead and would not vex her. While Eowyn rode east, her brother returned from the west with his Eored.<p>

Though weary from the journey and stinking of horse, Eomer reported immediately before the king and counselor. Eomer told of the extraordinary travelers he'd met wandering the lands of Rohan on foot - a ranger from the north, a dwarf, and an elf - yes, all in the same company. Eomer then related how he had loaned the ill-assorted travelers horses and granted them passage through the plains, though he knew this to be in violation of the laws and customs of Rohan. The counselor's quick eyes lost the bored look that they usually contained when he beheld his Liege's nephew and began to simmer with dark intensity.

Taking no heed, Eomer also told the king of his attack on a band of Orcs roving through the land. Implicit in this revelation was his admission that he had neglected to reinforce his cousin's troops before the battle that claimed Theodred's life. In response to questions from Wormtongue, Eomer stated tersely that he had felt his swords were better needed elsewhere, and that when Theodred and he had last conferred, neither of them had anticipated that the king's son was riding to face an insurmountable enemy. He was greatly saddened by his cousin's death, and wished that he had been present to guard his life and to die with him if needed.

Grave of face, the king and his counselor retired and conferred. After a short while Grima returned with his somber aspect intact (though his eyes seemed to conceal some mirth in their chasmic depths) and reported that the king was indisposed after the vigor of contemplating his nephew's fate. Grima read the king's decision from a page of hastily jotted notes: that Eomer must be jailed for the present, and sentenced shortly after for his defiance to the king's orders and the land's laws. Eomer was seized at once and dragged off, shouting for his uncle until the stone walls strangled his cries.

* * *

><p>By the time that Eowyn returned with wind-ruffled hair from her ride across the plains, her brother was securely tucked away in the dungeon underneath the Meduseld, and Wormtongue was cloistered in his office, drafting the order of execution. While Eowyn parried swords in the yard, her uncle signed the order in the hall. It was not until late into the afternoon after she had bathed, changed her dusty clothes, and eaten an unsatisfying lunch, that Eowyn gazed out the doors at the horizon and noticed a throng of people at the entrance to the Meduseld.<p>

Curious, and having no close companions to ask, Eowyn pressed into the back of the crowd of jostling commoners. People turned to look at her and made room as they stared at the princess in their midst. She could hear them muttering around her.

"It is the White Lady."

"She does not know?"

"Let her through, let her through."

When she made it to the front of the line to view the order, it was more than she could comprehend at first glance. Her uncle's signature was getting worse . . . Her brother was charged with crimes . . . Then he was back? . . . She had not yet seen him . . . Grima's handwriting was as greasy as his words . . . Her brother's head was to be struck off in three day's time.

She felt the air pounded from her lungs as though and unguarded blow in the practice ring had caught her straight on the back. Her mouth tasted of bile and blood. In her effort to hold her tongue, she'd bitten her cheek. Aware that she must be making a spectacle, she fled the crowd into the cool interior of the hall. She kept her eyes fixed at her feet, but could feel the stares she drew after her burning her back.

* * *

><p>She sought her uncle at once, hoping that if there were any mercy for her in this world she would not have to face his counselor as well. The one was usually by the other's side. Though she loved her uncle dearly, Eowyn had begun to neglect and avoid the old man. He had nothing to say to her and made no effort to restrain the repellent attentions of his loathsome counselor.<p>

Grima Wormtongue had a way of looking at her that made her skin crawl. He had unnatural eyes -— wild and blue — that lingered on her like a starving man contemplating a warm loaf of bread. His ravenous gaze made her feel as if he wished to consume her right there in the hall, before her uncle, or whomever else might be present.

This awful man, now a powerful force in the government of Rohan, had once been her tutor. Long before he or she had held any position in the world they worked together in daily contact. He had been a pensive youth, and she a wayward girl-child. Hours they spent in the library studying the few books that the Meduseld held. Most of the texts they studied had been copied in Grima's efficient hand during his infrequent, lengthy visits to the Steward's library at Gondor. Eowyn had grown to know his handwriting better than her own. It was distinct for the extremity of its tilt and the lack of ornamentation common in most scribe's letters.

They had pretended that the success of their lessons mattered when they both knew their real purpose: grooming the boyish niece of the king so she would not prove to be an embarrassment when she married above her. Rudimentary reading and math skills would increase her value by enabling her to keep the household books for her future lord.

It must have been an undesirable task for a young scholar of Grima's talents, but he had never complained or allowed his resentment to show through in front of his young charge. He even concealed the intent of the lessons as best as he could. He cloaked reading in the study of thrilling stories and disguised learning to calculate figures as a strange game of numbers with elaborate rules that they alone could play. She had never known if he did this for her benefit or his.

She could almost smile when she recalled him then. He had been a friend to her, one of the only creatures in her uncle's hall to consider it worth taking notice of a stripling orphan girl. However, any smile at Grima's past kindness would inevitably turn sour; over the years he had changed to the point of unrecognizability. She knew not when he began to twist and distort, but it seemed to happen apace with his rise in position. And she had changed too, grown to womanhood. That had thrust a distance between them and changed their relationship in other more sinister ways. His lust for her had been an open secret since she developed a woman's figure, but her ability to return his affection or even to pity him had long since withered.

She could not abide to see him now, not with the text of that order still hovering before her eyes. Her brother's death was written in Grima's hand. In her current mood, she ran a danger that she might gut him on sight, and then she could do no good for Eomer except to die with him.

Eowyn entered the throne room. To her relief, she saw an empty chair at her uncle's side. Then the counselor was away. Strangely she could still feel his eyes crawling over her as if he were there. She felt a tingling sense of expectation, as though she were entering a place said to be haunted. She shivered and remembered a night she and Eomer had spent as children in the ancient fortress of Helm's Deep. She remembered how they had waited for ghosts with excitable minds, and built phantoms out of every shadow. The flap of a bat's wings became the swish of Sauron's cloak and the rusty creak of a hinge was the hunting cry of a pack of Orcs.

Now Eowyn was grown and a warrior trained, but evidently she still fell victim to the same absurd flights of fancy. Even when Grima was gone, Eowyn could not forget him, the haunter of the hall, her own personal incubus. She could not scourge his stain out of her mind, or wipe the chill of his fingers from the nape of her neck.

* * *

><p>Eowyn sank to her knees before her uncle's throne. This brought her nearly level with the old man's worn out face. Theoden was doubled over with age and exhaustion. His white beard pooled in his lap like a washer woman's rags.<p>

She found his hands buried under the dusty coil of his beard and drew them toward her, squeezing them tightly. "My lord," she began. "I have just seen the notice on the door. I could not read it entirely, because I was upset, but I know that it is a mistake. You must not do this. Eomer never meant to break our laws or do anything to harm your majesty. He has ever been loyal to you." Her voice broke with passion.

Her uncle said nothing in response. He stared ahead, peering through her like she were a pane of glass.

"Uncle," she tried again, more familiarly. "I know that you are old and suffering, but I need your help, and I need your protection. Eomer needs you too. He is your kin and he loves you. Rouse yourself, if you retain any spark of strength. You must publicly revoke the order you have signed against Eomer. He is true, as true as I am."

Still her uncle made no response. His clouded eyes were vacant and imbecilic. She released his hands and cupped her palms to either side of his face, attempting to draw him toward her. She stared into his eyes and it was like staring into a void.

"Uncle. Uncle Theoden. Hear me. Hear your Eowyn. Please. Please. Please. I beg you." She must first get a response from him, any response, and then she could try to make him listen about Eomer.

He opened his mouth as though to speak. Eowyn leaned forward to catch every word. He merely spat a great gob of spit down the front of his robes and began snoring.

Eowyn stood and wiped her hands of the old man's drool. She did not know whether to scream at him or to weep for herself, so she did neither. Her hands shook. It was clear that she was to have no help. She would save Eomer on her own or watch him perish.

* * *

><p><em>AN: Thanks to all the wonderful readers who posted wonderful reviews on the prologue. They made me very happy._

_Next week - Grima's first direct appearance in the story. Although, to be fair, we've already heard a lot about him in this last chapter. Apparently he is much in the Lady Eowyn's mind . . ._


	3. The View From The Shadows

**Chapter Two:**

**The View From The Shadows**

In the narrow aisle outside the pillars that flanked the great hall, Grima Wormtongue paced and thought; he always thought before he spoke. It did not matter whom he was talking to or what he was talking about. He rehearsed his proposal for an amendment to the king's current policy on receiving visitors. He ticked off the arguments in his head like a card shark shuffling a deck of cards to make sure that the right ones are up his sleeves and the rest are properly ordered in the deck.

He felt confident that Theoden would agree to his suggestion that in future all visitors would first be screened by the King's counselor. He'd explain that the policy was intended to spare the frail king and conserve his waning strength. He knew just what points he would stress. And, in another small degree, Rohan would pass from Theoden's control to Grima's.

He heard soft, fast footsteps and looked up from the tile square he was contemplating. A quick scan of the room revealed that Theoden had company. The princess knelt before the aged king in the soft light that filtered through the high windows of the hall.

Grima sought cover in the long shadows behind the pillars. For the time being, he found it more productive to watch the interaction between Eowyn and her uncle. He would like to see if his hold over the old man could be breached by an earnest and sustained petition. And he would enjoy the scenery while he observed the test.

She began in a low yet audible voice to implore her uncle on her brother's behalf. So she had discovered Eomer's plight. When he'd seen her earlier, she was eating lunch in the dining room, and though she had glared at him, the hatred in her glance was casual enough to suggest that she had not yet seen his order for her brother's decapitation.

Eowyn's voice faltered before the king's indifference. Grima craned forward to gain a better view. He didn't worry about her discovering him. Within the dusky halls of the Meduseld the black robes of his office concealed him as well as an elven-made cloak. Eowyn knew that he watched her, but only some of the time.

Often he could view entire conversations that she thought were private. So he had learned all her secrets, at least the ones that she carelessly verbalized within the walls of the hall. He knew her routine as he knew the movements of the sun and the steady march of the stars across the sky as one year drew to a close and another began. He could predict her actions based on the subtleties of her moods and the features of her surroundings.

She wasn't simple, but her face was beautifully transparent and she could conceal her emotions no better than a small child. He could read her like a book that he'd studied so long that the words had become part of him, one he knew so well that he found that he forgot to turn the pages as he recited the text.

For a time he'd pretended that he watched her to learn valuable information that he or his lord might find useful, but everything that he saw only increased his painful, hopeless longing without adding any clarity. Whenever his gaze lingered a moment too long and he caught her glance the hatred in her eyes cut him like a sudden gash across his chest.

Sometimes he could catch her dreaming as she dozed in a large chair by the fire in the hall by the kitchen and it was the kind of reprieve that felt akin to a stay of execution. He would sit next to her and depart while she still breathed heavy with sleep. At such times her hostile eyes were closed, her face was relaxed, and Grima was free to imagine her as he would. He daydreamed while she dreamed:

Everyone perished in the War of the Ring. The forces of Sauron and Gondor decimated by ceaseless battle. The armies of Saruman and the Riders of Rohan were destroyed in undoing each other, like duelists exchanging death wounds and bleeding out on the same narrow patch of earth. The meddling elves left the shores of Middle Earth as their songs had so long tantalized, and the tiresome dwarves retreated to their underground lairs and were buried in a crushing deluge of rock. Some died by fire, some by swords, and some by dark means mysterious. In all this chaos and miserable death, only he and Eowyn remained. Shattered refugees of a horrible war and the last of their kind, they came together. They healed each others' wounds. They sought tender comfort in one anothers' arms and she grew to love him as he loved her.

It was a silly dream for a man who usually expended his energies crafting clever solutions to the problems that plagued him, but that was the appeal. The more savagely she scorned him, the more utterly he disintegrated into fantasies that bore no correlation to reality. For weeks he seemed to live in the margins between sleep and dream, because there she could exist for him as he wanted her and needed her to be. It became an effort to shake himself awake to deal with the daily crises of Rohan and to carry out the wizard's dark agenda. The latter worried him more than the former, because if he failed his part of his bargain to Saruman, then painful death would be the only reward that he could anticipate.

With the familiar reluctant kick, his mind returned to the present, to his lady before him. Eowyn had ceased trying to speak to her uncle and released his catatonic face from her hold. Visibly shaking, she stood. Theoden remained statue-still. Eowyn turned and left as she had entered, without glancing into the shadows where Grima lurked.

The room grew cold without her. It did not matter. She would soon seek him out. He returned to his chambers so that he would be easy to find when she came looking. His business with the king could wait.

* * *

><p>Grima unlocked the door to the small room that served both as his study and his bedroom within the Meduseld. The bright afternoon sun steamed in through the window and made a silhouette of the raven perched upon the outside ledge. When it saw him, the bird scratched at the glass with one of its talons and opened its beak to caw. Its beady eyes winked at him in the bright light.<p>

Grima was no great observer of nature, but this did not seem normal bird behavior. He crossed the floor to raise the window and allow the raven entrance. The bird flew in and landed on the branch-like stem of a candle fixture on his desk.

Before Grima had time to shoo the bird from its perch precariously near his important papers, it opened its beak and a deep booming voice issued forth.

"Your latest dispatch was lacking," the raven said. Its beak did not move with the words, rather the speech seemed to flow out of the bird like wine out of a ruptured wine sack. It was surely bewitched, one of the white wizard's black messengers.

Grima folded his hands behind his back. "I am sorry, my lord. I have been quite overwhelmed with the pace that events have been unfolding of late. I wrote in haste, in a few stolen moments."

"During such times it is particularly important that you keep me informed of all developments. I do not always have time to track you down in innovative disguises." The raven looked reproachful, if that were possible.

"Yes, my lord."

"Tell me what has occurred. I will then instruct you how to proceed. You are placed there to serve my will in Theoden's court, not to make decisions on my behalf."

"Yes my lord."

"Now, you wrote that the blasted Theodred had died per our plan. Tell me more of his passing."

"He died sometime in the night. That was four days ago. He passed slowly of his grievous wounds. I believe that they were infected because they started to stink by the third day, and they were burning to the touch. The court healers lack all competence, and I don't think they ever realized what afflicted him, or gave him proper treatment."

"Then you did not find it necessary to administer the potions I sent you?"

"No. I merely gave him something to quiet his pain and ease his passing." There was no reply, so Grima continued to explain. "He had been screaming night and day before I visited him. A servant may have seen me the last time I gave him medicine, so I may get blamed with poisoning him anyways."

"How merciful and foolish of you."

"Just because a man's death is required doesn't mean that it has to be painful."

"Do not make the mistake of letting compassion interfere with your duties, counselor. You remember what is at stake?"

Grima nodded. "I assure you, my lord, it was not compassion that moved me. Just a distaste for the loud screamings of a dying man, and impatience with the incompetence of the imbecile healers."

"I suggest that next time you remember that poisons quiet screaming just as effectively as balms. For Grima, if you fail me, if you betray me, I shall not be compassionate. I will kill her before you. Your pretty lady will have an ugly death. Afterward you will pray to die and I will deny you even though you beg me."

Grima cast his eyes down. During the wizard's criticism, he had not reacted, and when he looked up again his face was a cypher. When he spoke his voice was quite and measured. "My lord that will not be necessary."

"This conversation quickly grows tedious. Perhaps I should have been thankful you did not write in greater detail. What other news of Rohan? How is the king?"

"More and more submerged everyday. I could command him to throw himself from the topmost tower of Helm's Deep, and he would."

"Good."

"And my lord-"

"Yes?"

"I have good news for you unbidden. I have arrested his nephew and heir, Eomer, on charges of treason."

"When?"

"Only this morning."

The raven was silent for so long that Grima thought that Saruman might have departed.

"Lord?"

"That is good. Very good. Perhaps you may wed the fair Eowyn yet."

"Have you any special wishes regarding Eomer, son of Eomund?"

"Kill the fool. Send me his head."

"That I shall. However, I must wait for the customary three days to pass if I am to maintain any claim of the government's legitimacy. Rest assured, my lord, I shall enjoy watching that proud neck sever."

"Very well. Have you any further news?"

"None."

"Then pay attention to what I shall tell you. There are strangers in the land of Rohan: a man, an elf, and a dwarf. I may require your aide in dealing with this mongrel company. They should not, under any circumstances, be allowed to see Theoden.

"Yes my lord."

"There may also be an old man who has joined their number. Keep a special watch for him. Though appearing least, he is the most dangerous of the rabble."

"None of their description shall see the king."

"I have further instructions for you, but we must meet in person. It is a strain to possess this small, brainless creature at this distance any longer. Ride due south to the copse of wood a league to the south. I will be waiting there at midday in two days time."

Without even waiting for a response, or to hear if Grima knew the location of which he had spoken, the wizard was gone, vanished from behind the eyes of the raven. The bird reeled on its perch and cried as though it had been mortally injured.

The bird regained control of its body and flew to the ceiling of Grima's room, which was not high, but just beyond Grima's reach. It circled and flew every way but towards the open window that offered escape. In the course of the chase it sprayed feces over Grima's sleeping pallet and perched on the top of his bookshelf, slashing at his arms every time he tried to steer it away. Grima's hands were shaking and his robes were splattered by the time he had steered the reluctant bird out of the window and slammed the pane shut.

It was a rudeness of Saruman not to possess the bird long enough to guide it out of Grima's room. It would have taken him a second of his time to save Grima minutes of struggle. Likely the thought had not even occurred to him. There were certain downsides to dealing with wizards.

Saruman was the only wizard that Grima had had personal dealings with, and though he had profited much since entering the service of Isengard, conversation with him always left Grima feeling deeply unclean, like it had lowered him. The wizard's tendency to continually threaten him when angry and promise him boons when pleased grew irritating. It was as though the wizard did not trust Grima to remain true to his purpose without continual kicks and caresses, as though he thought Grima were a horse or some mindless beast of toil. He did not relish the necessity of journeying to meet Saruman face to face, but the idea of not going didn't even enter his mind, because it was too horrible to contemplate.

If Saruman, who called himself wise, had truly understood his servant, then he would have known that Grima couldn't have forgotten the goal, like he couldn't have forgotten to breathe or to blink. What else could happen with her constantly there, lingering near but ever out of his reach? Perhaps when you live the span of many men's lives, you forget the workings of the human heart, Grima thought. He moved to change the soiled linens of his pallet when there was a knock on his door.

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><p><em>AN: Free virtual oatmeal chocolate chip cookies to all reviewers._


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